Beginner's Luck: Selling Rookies Who Could Regress

Justin Carter looks at rookies from the previous season who could regress in 2020. He explains why dynasty owners should be looking to sell these players now while their fantasy football value is high.

When I say "dynasty fantasy football," one of the first things you probably think is "young players!" In leagues where you're keeping guys for years, having young guys is obviously a good way of building a team.

But just hoarding players in the first three or four seasons is not a clear path to a dynasty, and sometimes it can be useful to sell young players when they're at the height of their value instead of waiting around for them to underachieve in later years. Don't hold onto a potentially diminishing value just because the player is young.

Let's look at three rookies from 2019 who you might want to think about trading while their value is high.

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Devin Singletary (RB, BUF)

It's not so much that I see Singletary regressing in 2020, but more that I don't see the breakout performance we thought we saw coming.

The problem? Last year, Singletary's ceiling was limited by the presence of Frank Gore. Gore led the team in carries with 166 to Singletary's 151, and while Singletary outperformed him during that time, the split of red zone carries on the team was something of concern:

Gore had the same number of carries inside the 10-yard line that Singletary did inside the 20. All three of Singletary's carries inside the 10 came against Washington, a game in which Gore was incredibly ineffective, finishing with 11 rushing attempts for 15 yards.

Basically, the Bills had no reason to hand the ball to Singletary in the part of the field where a player is most likely to score a rushing touchdown.

This year, Gore is gone, but they went out and drafted Zack Moss, who is that same kind of consistent, power back that Gore is, but with the added bonus that he's flashed some pass-catching ability too. Moss is going to continue last year's trend of not giving the ball to Singletary inside the 10, because with him plus quarterback Josh Allen -- who is basically the Zach Moss of quarterbacks -- able to do that kind of bruising goal-line work, why would they need Singletary to do it?

This means that Singletary's touchdown numbers will once again rely on him making big plays. Having a running back in fantasy who basically will have to score his touchdowns on plays originating outside of the 10-yard line is not a great strategy.

Deebo Samuel (WR, SF)

Samuel had an interesting rookie campaign last year, finishing the regular season with 57 catches for 802 yards and three touchdowns, while also adding 14 rushing attempts for 159 yards and three touchdowns. His usage in multiple phases of the game made him a dangerous weapon for the Niners.

But a few things work against him moving forward. One is that three of his 14 rushing attempts went for touchdowns, a scoring rate that feels unsustainable even with how Samuel's usage on these end-around type plays is bound to produce higher yards per carry than on traditional rushing attempts.

Samuel could see more usage in the passing game this year, but that's complicated too. For one, this will remain a run-heavy team, which limits just how many chances Samuel can have. There's also the fact that San Francisco used a first-round pick on Brandon Aiyuk, a big-play receiver who should be quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo's vertical threat. P

rovided Aiyuk develops quickly, this likely means fewer chances for Samuel down the field in the long term. Samuel only had eight deep targets last year and was 65th among wide receivers in completed air yards; for him to really make it into the next tier of fantasy players at his position, you really need him to start seeing more targets further from the line of scrimmage.

Samuel can do a lot after the catch, but short passes don't produce monster fantasy seasons, and the drafting of Aiyuk seems to imply that Samuel is not going to suddenly start seeing the kind of downfield usage that you'd want to see from him.

Gardner Minshew II (QB, JAX)

Minshew is a fun player, but this is also the perfect time to move on from him.

Right now, the future when it comes to Minshew seems pretty wide open: He's young, he's taking the full reins of this Jaguars offense, he's got that mustache...what else could you want?

But just because a young quarterback is starting NFL games doesn't mean that young quarterback is going to be winning you fantasy football games, and just because that second-year quarterback is expected to be a full-season starter in 2020 doesn't mean you can expect him to hold that role in 2021, especially if his team is as bad as many expect it to be.

The thing about Minshew's rookie year is that yes, it was incredible to see a player basically come from nowhere and produce some solid performances, but while Minshew did have a pair of three-touchdown games and his NFL debut off the bench against the Chiefs saw him go 22-for-25 for 275 yards and two scores, he also put up some...less good games.

Notably, after regaining the starting role in Week 14, Minshew's final four games saw him average 209.8 yards per game on a 59.56 completion percentage. He managed to avoid throwing interceptions over that time, finishing with seven touchdowns against just one pick, but you don't really love to see a player's worst yardage totals coming later in the year. Of his three starts where he threw for under 200 yards, two came in those final four games, and another game in that stretch saw him finish at just 201.

Minshew did produce some good rushing numbers last year, finishing fifth among quarterbacks in rushing yards despite his raw speed not being great, but he struggled with throws in the red zone, completing just 45.6 percent of those. He struggled when pressured, and while his deep ball completion percentage was fifth-best in the league, he was only 24th in deep attempts, so it's hard to know if that number would be sustainable if he was throwing deep as often as other quarterbacks.

Basically, there's not really much about the advanced metrics for Minshew that scream "long-term NFL starter," and on a Jaguars team that's in rebuild mode, the plan has to be to draft a new quarterback next year.

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